Divers sweep conference meet

The Conference Diving team of the year, 4th place Colin Soguero, 2nd place Ethan Igel, Estes Diving Coach Bill Kanter, 1st place Jacob Bielmaier and 3rd place Luke Soguero. (Deborah Holmes / For the Trail-Gazette)

The Bobcats made serious waves at their Conference Championships over the weekend. The team finished top of the small teams behind the three teams that only outnumbered the Cats in team members. Estes finished fourth overall with 281 team points. Silver Creek won with 455.5 points, Thompson Valley finished second with 395 points and Windsor was third with 351.5 points. Behind Estes; Mountain View was fifth with 198 points, Longmont was sixth with 186 points, Greeley Central was seventh with 125 points and Valley finished eighth with 64 points.

"We did phenomenal," Coach Bill Ruth said. "I guarantee that we have got to be the only team in the state to qualify as many kids, as we did, into the State Championship that does not have a year-round club program. And that is hard to do!"

Luke Soguero finished third at the conference meet with a score of 502.3. (Deborah Holmes / For the Trail-Gazette)

Friday the swimmers traveled to Mountain View Aquatic Center for their preliminary events, from which they qualified to compete again in Saturdays finals.

"On Friday, we had an amazing day," Coach Russ Franklin said. "Just about everyone had best times across the board. We got two more state qualifications and set ourselves up well for Saturday."

On Saturday, it was the Cat divers that rocked the Aquatic Center, sweeping the diving event. Jacob Bielmaier won the Championship, setting a new school record of 538.6 points for 11 dives. He was also chosen as the Conference Diver of the year, by the Conference team coaches. Ethan Igel finished in second place with 512.6 points, Luke Soguero was third with 502.3 and Colin Soguero took fourth with 501.05.

Advertisement

"It was fantastic, and each of them scored over 500 points too, which is hard to do," Coach Bill Kanter said. "We knew we could do it. They did what they had to do and it all fell into place for them. What a great way to finish their high school diving careers as conference champions!"

In swimming finals on Saturday, Chase Schwarz led the swimming Cats finishing fourth in the 50 free (23.07) and second in the 100 free (51.01).

Nathan Zurfluh qualifies for state in his 100 back. (Deborah Holmes / For the Trail-Gazette)

Amos Westley qualified for finals in both the 200 and 500 freestyle races. In finals, he finished 15th in the 200 free (2:03.49) and eighth in the 500 free with his first state qualifying time of 5:28.86.

Eric Johnson found himself in a 'swim-off' on Friday against a swimmer from Silver Creek for a top eight finals spot for Saturday. Johnson lost the swim-off by .07 seconds, however ended up in the finals due to a scratched swimmer from the event and finished seventh overall with his time of 24.02, beating the Silver Creek athlete that he lost to in the swim-off. Johnson's preliminary races qualified him for the State Championships in his 50 free. He also swam the 100 free and finished 13th with his time of 54.85.

Connor Flanery grabbed ninth place in the 50 free with a time of 23.42, which was the sixth fastest time of the Conference. Since his prelim time was a little slower (23.81) he missed qualifying for the 'finals' heat and was unable to move up in the final rankings. However, in his 100 free Flanery didn't miss the final heat and finished on the podium in fifth place with his state qualifying time of 52.24.

Nathan Zurfluh surprised everyone grabbing his state qualification in the 100 back with his prelim time of 1:00.83. He finished in finals in eighth place with a time of 1:04.69. He also finished 14th in the 50 free with his time of 24.63.

Steele Wolf grabbed 15th in the 50 free (24.65) and started sluggish in the 100 back in prelims (1:02.37) but turned it on in finals with his final time of 59.61 which was the sixth fastest time in the championships. He scored ninth overall.

Spencer Holmes finished 16th overall on Saturday in the 100 free with his time of 57.74.

Freshmen, John Ferree and Nathan Fitzpatrick showed their strength in the 100 breast. Each returned into the consolation finals on Saturday with Ferree finishing 10th (1:12.05) and Fitzpatrick finished 12th (1:12.46).

The Bobcat Relays all found their spot onto of the awards podium by the end of the day. Wolf, Ferre, Zurfluh and Eric Johnson finished sixth in the 200-medley relay with their time of 1:49.34.

Schwarz, Flanery, Eric Johnson and Holmes took the 200-free relay to a fourth-place finish with their time of 1:34.27.

Schwarz, Flanery, Wolf and Zuefluh finished third in the 400-free relay (3:29.17).

Swimming in preliminaries on Friday also included Bobcat swimmers; Holmes in the 50 free who finished 19th with his time of 25.45, Cole Hansen who finished 27th (26.58), Sean Johnson finished 35th in the 50 free (27.67), Fitzpatrick finished 38th (28.0), Ferree finished 48th (28.63), Riley Hunt was 51st (28.8), Finn Tierney was 62nd (30.04) and Fazeel Bhatti was 70th, 'and not last' with his time of 32.48.

Tierney finished the 500 free in 22nd place with a personal best time of 7:16.77.

Cat team members of Hansen, Fitzpatrick, Holmes and Johnson finished 10th in the 200-medley relay with their time of 1:57.15, which was a state qualifying time for their 'B' relay. Hansen, Sean Johnson, Hunt and Westley grabbed 11th in their 200-free relay with their time of 1:52.41. The 400-free relay of Westley, Hunt, Tierney and Ferree finished 12th with a time of 4:22.71.

The Bobcats are now ready for their State Championships which will be held at the U.S. Airforce Academy in Colorado Springs on Friday, May 19 and Saturday, May 20. Similar to their Conference, preliminary swimming begins on Friday at 4 p.m., diving begins on Saturday at 9 a.m. and finals on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.